While I really enjoy Christmas–the food, the music, the time with family, the food, the presents, it seems that we’re always chasing some unattainable ideal. Maybe we remember that overwhelming giddy feeling that we had a few Christmas mornings during our early childhood, and spend every year trying to recreate that by spreading our time and money too thin.

For years, we’ve talked about how odd it is that we celebrate God arriving as a vulnerable, tiny child, sleeping not in a crib, but a feeding trough, by spending money we don’t really have, often out of obligation, thus putting not only our families in a bad position, but our economy as well (unless you’re a big box retailer). But we don’t really know how or why we’ve gotten to this point as a culture, or a way out of it.

Here’s a couple things you might be interested in if you’ve been thinking about this:

Episode 148 of This American Life is dedicated to the subject of Santa Claus. The first 8 minutes of the show, Ira Glass investigates the origins of Saint Nick and his connection with modern Christmas celebrations. You can listen by going to this page here.

Morgan Spurlock, who made the documentary “Super-Size Me,” has a new film out, called “What Would Jesus Buy?”. He came to Portland a month ago and spoke at Cinema 21 before screening the film. He also stopped by the Imago Dei church to talk with Rick McKinley about the film. Rick is involved with a movement called The Advent Conspiracy, which aims to celebrate the birth of Jesus by giving of ourselves the way that Christ gave of himself, and giving in a relational way, rather than in a consumerist way.

Morgan Spurlock interview with Rick McKinley (about 15 minutes in)
What Would Jesus Buy? movie site

I don’t, by any means, have all of this figured out yet, and I love celebrating Christmas. But I’m hoping that by next year, I’ll have figured out an even more awesome way to celebrate it. I’m feeling a lot in my life lately that I want to “be the change I would like to see in the world.” Whether it’s giving people great music to listen to, figuring out how to be more environmentally responsible, or being a good parent. So I guess I’m hoping that next year, one of my gifts I give away is a really great way to celebrate Christmas.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 22nd, 2007 at 9:56 pm and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.